Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and
Speaker 1: I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Sitting across from me as always a senior writer, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end
Speaker 1: of the western spiral arm of the galaxy lies a small,
Speaker 1: unregarded yellow sun. That's a nice quote to uh to
Speaker 1: begin this episode. That has a lot to do with light. Yes,
Speaker 1: And this comes courtesy of a little Facebook feedback you
Speaker 1: and this Facebook feedback says, Hey, guys, I love your
Speaker 1: podcast and I listened to them on my downtime. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I've done a search on how stuff works website on
Speaker 1: oh Lad, I noticed a very technical article written on
Speaker 1: the website. However, I was wondering if you guys would
Speaker 1: be willing to give your take on it. How do
Speaker 1: they stack up to L DAN plasma where the differences
Speaker 1: between the different types of old maybe explain the differences
Speaker 1: between L ed O, LAD, etcetera. Thanks, Um, Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: gonna sit there and talk a little bit about oh LEDs,
Speaker 1: what they are, what they do, how they how they
Speaker 1: are different from other technologies. Uh, and it's interesting stuff.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think by when I first started at
Speaker 1: how stuff works, Oh lads, we're still very very much
Speaker 1: in the prototype stage, and you didn't really see anything
Speaker 1: on the market at that time, the consumer market anyway,
Speaker 1: they had an o LED type screen and now they're
Speaker 1: much later in the prototype stage. But we're kidding the lads. Actually,
Speaker 1: now we're getting to the point where we're finally seeing
Speaker 1: them scaled up to large screen TVs. But for a
Speaker 1: long time, the biggest screen you're gonna get with something
Speaker 1: like eleven inches. Yeah. Well, the genesis of my joke
Speaker 1: being that people who are really interested in old technology
Speaker 1: have been waiting for them to come out for a
Speaker 1: very long time. It seems like they're uh, they've been
Speaker 1: in development of some kind for a for a long
Speaker 1: long time. They've been actually pretty common in smaller screens
Speaker 1: like smartphone screens for example. Um, they're they're really great
Speaker 1: for that. They use less energy than a lot of
Speaker 1: the other technologies and they're excellent for that. But that's
Speaker 1: you know, getting them scaled up has taken a long time,
Speaker 1: and the people who have been waiting I'm gonna buy
Speaker 1: an old TV, like, well, you know, I wouldn't hold
Speaker 1: my breath. Well, but finally they're starting to hit now.
Speaker 1: But and and also the other thing people have been
Speaker 1: waiting for, and it's one of the types we'll talk
Speaker 1: about in a little a little further in in the
Speaker 1: podcast is the flexible oh Lady, that idea of having
Speaker 1: a display that is actually malleable, that you can bend
Speaker 1: it around things. And you know, you might use that
Speaker 1: to have a foldable display. That's what a lot of
Speaker 1: people talk about. But there are other things you could
Speaker 1: use it for, Like you could use it in displays,
Speaker 1: say in a store where you've got round columns, and
Speaker 1: you could have a display wrapping around this round column. Yeah,
Speaker 1: things like that. Well, yeah, and it's uh. And that's
Speaker 1: the thing about it. I think, um, despite the fact
Speaker 1: that it's taken a while to get larger oh lad screens,
Speaker 1: the technology will be worth the way. But I think
Speaker 1: it's uh. I think it is a good idea to
Speaker 1: go ahead and talk about the similarities. And there I
Speaker 1: think three major similarities between the technologies red, green, and blue. Yeah. Light. Well,
Speaker 1: the purpose of all all the technologies we're talking about here,
Speaker 1: you know, plasma, l c D and UH you know
Speaker 1: the oh lads or LED screens and organic LED screens. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's to display information and it shows
Speaker 1: us light. UM. The trick is really how they go
Speaker 1: about doing that. And we've talked about some of the
Speaker 1: other technologies in the past, like for example, plasma uses
Speaker 1: UH gases ionized gas and basically you they show the
Speaker 1: different colors by running a charge through the gas and
Speaker 1: then look like l c D uses liquid crystals, and
Speaker 1: these liquid crystals actually form a barrier between light and
Speaker 1: the clear part of the screen, and then the l
Speaker 1: c D s, through various running an electric current through
Speaker 1: change shape and that allows light to pass through and
Speaker 1: there's some color filters in there and that's where we
Speaker 1: get the displays through that. So that's a liquid crystal display.
Speaker 1: L E D s are light emitting diodes and we've
Speaker 1: had those around for for quite some time and they're
Speaker 1: pretty efficient. They're more efficient than a lot of other
Speaker 1: forms of lighting. But an O l e D, as
Speaker 1: Chris had mentioned, is an organic light emitting diode and
Speaker 1: you might think, well, what how that huh, And it
Speaker 1: really comes down to, uh, kind of a an organic sandwich. Yes,
Speaker 1: And the thing is, uh, they're not terribly different from
Speaker 1: from the typical L E. D s, but it's it
Speaker 1: really comes down to the materials used to make that sandwich.
Speaker 1: So they're they're they're very in alright. So an O
Speaker 1: L ED it's it's solid state, all right, And it
Speaker 1: is usually between one hundred to five hundred nanometers thick,
Speaker 1: which is pretty thin. That's according to uh to most estimates.
Speaker 1: And this does change from one source to another, but
Speaker 1: it's about two hundred times thinner than a human hair
Speaker 1: in diameter. Now, human hair is actually come into a
Speaker 1: variety of diameters. It's like one person's hair might be
Speaker 1: thinner than another's. Uh. Some people have clear hair like me,
Speaker 1: My hair is invisible to the human eye. But yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you rate the two hundred it's an average,
Speaker 1: so it's two hundred times smaller than the diameter of
Speaker 1: human hair. And uh, it's they're different layers within this sandwich, right,
Speaker 1: and that's what is creating the light that you see.
Speaker 1: And there's the basics the the bread on the sandwich,
Speaker 1: if you will, is our pair of electrodes. Right, You've
Speaker 1: got your cathode and you've got your anode. Now, technically
Speaker 1: you also have the substrate. The substrate is the foundation
Speaker 1: that the lad sits upon, So substrate is also part
Speaker 1: of this, but I'm looking mostly at the components that
Speaker 1: actually make the old work. Right. So, yeah, you've got
Speaker 1: the cathode and the anode, and you've got the jobs
Speaker 1: of the cathode and the anode are to create a
Speaker 1: circuit for electricity to flow through, right right, The electrons
Speaker 1: flow from one to the other, from the cathode to
Speaker 1: the anode. And in a way you have to kind
Speaker 1: of think of this in uh interesting terms, like, so
Speaker 1: cathode is injecting negative particles into this o led sandwich. Yes,
Speaker 1: I am positive that they are negative electrons, is what
Speaker 1: cathodes are putting into their The anode is creating well
Speaker 1: what we call them electron holes. They're positive. It's they
Speaker 1: turn an element into a positively charged element. They actually
Speaker 1: pull electrons out of it and so now it's positively charged.
Speaker 1: So that means that the electrons coming from the cathode
Speaker 1: are attracted toward the anode. Side. Hey, you're pretty cute,
Speaker 1: and so it has to pass through the other layers
Speaker 1: of the sandwich. And there are two or three other
Speaker 1: layers depending on the type of o ledge you're looking at,
Speaker 1: but really the two layer is the most common, so
Speaker 1: I'll just stick with that. So you've got your emissive layer,
Speaker 1: this is the layer that actually emits light, and you
Speaker 1: have your conductive layer, which is the layer that attracts
Speaker 1: the electrons through the other materials. So if we're looking
Speaker 1: at top to bottom and the bottom is the substrate,
Speaker 1: then the top layer is your cathode. Next down you
Speaker 1: have your emissive layer, that's where the light comes through.
Speaker 1: Then you have your conductive layer that's what's pulling the
Speaker 1: electrons down. Then you have the anode layer. That's what's
Speaker 1: really pulling the electrons down. It's what's allowing the conductive
Speaker 1: layer to pull these electrons through. And then you have
Speaker 1: the substrate. So, uh, why are we getting light? Boy?
Speaker 1: This this gets into some interesting physics here. Okay, So
Speaker 1: you've got the electrons coming through from one side, you've
Speaker 1: got the electron holes coming through from the other side.
Speaker 1: So in a way, you can think of negative charge
Speaker 1: and positive charge. I know that sounds weird, but just
Speaker 1: go with me here. And when those two meet, the
Speaker 1: molecule that they meet at becomes UH actually drops an
Speaker 1: electron into that positive hole and as a result there
Speaker 1: is a difference in energy. It releases some energy as
Speaker 1: a result of that that reaction, and that energy is
Speaker 1: released in the form of a photon. And we've talked
Speaker 1: about this before about how if you excite an atom,
Speaker 1: you know, by telling you it's going to this new
Speaker 1: world or something, and the electrons move to a higher
Speaker 1: energy state. When those electrons move back down, once that
Speaker 1: energy has has been removed from the system, once the
Speaker 1: electrons moved back down, they have to release that extra energy,
Speaker 1: and they often will do this in the form of photons,
Speaker 1: which we perceive as light. That's exactly what's going on here. Actually,
Speaker 1: I saw a great video on this UH at m
Speaker 1: I t S site where a professor was explaining how
Speaker 1: oh LED's work by shocking the heck out of a pickle.
Speaker 1: He had a had a cathode and an anode um
Speaker 1: attached to a pickle and was running a very high
Speaker 1: electric current through it, which was making the pickle glow.
Speaker 1: And it was this is what was happening. You had
Speaker 1: the positive charge in the negative charge meeting and the
Speaker 1: molecules where it met at that's where it was releasing
Speaker 1: this electron and uh and and releasing a photon or
Speaker 1: or it was the electron states were moving down and
Speaker 1: the photons were being released, and that's why we were
Speaker 1: getting light. Um. Pretty cool. Actually, I kind of wanted
Speaker 1: to build one, except for the fact that I'm sure
Speaker 1: I would probably electric you myself. For a second there,
Speaker 1: I thought you were girk in my chain. Anyway, So
Speaker 1: when we're talking about electricity, we're not talking about a lot.
Speaker 1: These are pretty efficient, so we're talking in a realm
Speaker 1: of just a few volts that are needed in order
Speaker 1: to excite these molecules so that they emit light. That's
Speaker 1: one of the major benefits of old screens is that
Speaker 1: they don't require as much electricity as some others. You know,
Speaker 1: of course, plasma TVs are are notorious for using a
Speaker 1: lot of electricity. Well, you have to keep pouring in
Speaker 1: electricity to keep that gas ionized. So yeah, plasma display
Speaker 1: is not They've gotten a lot better last years, but
Speaker 1: is it is by its very nature, is not the
Speaker 1: most environmentally friendly way of creating a television. Not that
Speaker 1: TV is terribly environmentally friendly no matter how you do it,
Speaker 1: but but it's it's less So yeah, plasma has a
Speaker 1: reputation for being for being less energy friendly. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there there there have been some better ones, but still uh.
Speaker 1: And those two different layers of molecules are are are organic,
Speaker 1: but they're organic plastic. It's pretty cool organic plastic like
Speaker 1: poly anelyin and polyfluorine. Okay, all right, you know, Pollyanna,
Speaker 1: you know when you when you say we're organic plastic,
Speaker 1: that sort of sounds like it's oxymoronic, like you know
Speaker 1: organ chuah wa Um. Well that that's actually um. We
Speaker 1: should talk about to the different types of oh leads
Speaker 1: because there are r G b OH lead screens and
Speaker 1: then there's the white lead screen UM, which sort of
Speaker 1: uses a color sandwich to UM and by by activating red, green,
Speaker 1: and blue, you get white UM. And uh you know
Speaker 1: those the red, green, and blue are are pressed together
Speaker 1: in the same pixel. So by doing that you can
Speaker 1: you can have the have basically a pure white UM
Speaker 1: and it's it. It works a little slightly differently than
Speaker 1: than the others simply because of that UM there are
Speaker 1: people say that it has a longer life than the
Speaker 1: traditional OH lead screens UM, but that is supposed to
Speaker 1: be one of the advantages of it. UM and it's
Speaker 1: also possible to, uh to scale the white OH lead
Speaker 1: screens up a little easier from what I understand. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's also been talked about as a potential replacement for
Speaker 1: things like fluorescent lights, where not just for displays, but
Speaker 1: for actual lighting, because that's it's even more efficient than
Speaker 1: fluorescent lighting is. And uh, you know you don't have
Speaker 1: that mercury that you gotta worry about that's in fluorescent lights. Yeah, guys,
Speaker 1: if you have those little fluorescent bulbs, which are you know,
Speaker 1: more energy efficient that incandescent bulbs, will good on you,
Speaker 1: but be very careful with them, yes, because those suckers
Speaker 1: do contain some very toxic chemicals in them that can
Speaker 1: be very dangerous. Yes, you do not want to bust them, right,
Speaker 1: So the O lead lights might be a nice alternative
Speaker 1: to that, you know, if if it's efficient enough so
Speaker 1: that they make economic sense to the consumer, because you know,
Speaker 1: you gotta worry about that, uh, And also the fact
Speaker 1: that they don't have these toxic chemicals necessarily inside them.
Speaker 1: If they are just as efficient or more so, then
Speaker 1: makes perfect sense to go and switch to it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There are actually several different types of oh lad screens
Speaker 1: and no lead displays. We talked about the foldable oh lads.
Speaker 1: Now these are using a substrate that is flexible. So
Speaker 1: you know, your typical substrate. When I think of substrate,
Speaker 1: I think of something that is that is, you know,
Speaker 1: pretty solid, or sometimes it can be a little brittle
Speaker 1: or whatever, but it doesn't bend. It's not bendy bindy. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: the the idea of being that you're going to build
Speaker 1: your circuit material on top of this material. So I
Speaker 1: mean you're this it's a board, so you you know,
Speaker 1: you're I'm going to add the stuff to it, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Usually you want something that's fairly solid, although you know,
Speaker 1: obviously for other applications you would need something that's flexible.
Speaker 1: Let's say that you want to create a display on
Speaker 1: say a jacket, which might very well be something not
Speaker 1: necessarily that the consumer would ever see. But let's say
Speaker 1: an advertising company creates this, uh, this type of of
Speaker 1: jacket that can have a flexible screen on the back
Speaker 1: of it, and then next thing, you know, You've got
Speaker 1: this new way for at trade shows where people can
Speaker 1: show off cool technology and it's literally playing on their backs. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, I could even imagine it going so far
Speaker 1: as to, let's see, you've got a courier service and
Speaker 1: you are sponsored, and they run ads on your back
Speaker 1: as you're you're a bike courier. I look forward to
Speaker 1: seeing that. I look forward to seeing all the accidents
Speaker 1: that will happen as a result of people turning their
Speaker 1: heads to see what to watch. Yeah, they're like, I'm
Speaker 1: want to follow this guy another mile. I have to
Speaker 1: see how this turns out. Clearly that if you did that,
Speaker 1: you'd have to make very visually stunning types of ads
Speaker 1: that don't need any audio. That would be that that
Speaker 1: would be the real challenge there. Look, I'm just trying.
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just trying to create some jobs out there.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm trying to do. Okay, But you also
Speaker 1: have you have your passive matrix. Oh lad, Now passive matrix,
Speaker 1: Oh lads. You know we talked about the cathodes and
Speaker 1: the anodes. Well that's not necessarily a sheet on top
Speaker 1: of you know, when I said sandwich, it sounds like
Speaker 1: you're talking about solid sheet, that's not necessarily the case,
Speaker 1: although that can be done a passive matrix. Oh lad.
Speaker 1: What it does is it it arranges the cathodes and
Speaker 1: anodes into strips. And one says strips are vertical and
Speaker 1: the other sets strips are horizontal. So you could think
Speaker 1: of it like all the anodes are streets and all
Speaker 1: the cathodes are avenues. So at these intersections where the
Speaker 1: cathode and anode meat, that's where you have your pixels,
Speaker 1: and your pixels of course, that's the point of light.
Speaker 1: So when you talk about how many picks soles that
Speaker 1: display has at so many points of light it is
Speaker 1: capable of displaying at one time more than that. It
Speaker 1: would be a very low resolution television. Uh. The So
Speaker 1: this is one way of doing that where you have
Speaker 1: the just at the intersections of these strips, that's where
Speaker 1: the pixels are uh. Not terribly efficient compared to other
Speaker 1: oh lads and uh And also for all of these screens,
Speaker 1: if you're wondering about controlling brightness, that's a function of
Speaker 1: how much electricity is flowing through the system. If you're
Speaker 1: pouring more juice into it, it's going to be brighter,
Speaker 1: less juice not as bright, which makes sense. Uh. Next
Speaker 1: we have the active matrix, oh lad, and this has
Speaker 1: a full sheet of the cathode and and it's sort
Speaker 1: of like the sandwich example I was giving earlier. So
Speaker 1: in this case, there is a film transistor that is
Speaker 1: uh gotta. It's an anode layer overlay, and that's what
Speaker 1: forms the matrix. Uh, not the kind that NEO goes
Speaker 1: through with all the zeros and ones, but this in
Speaker 1: the it forms the same feature as the intersections on
Speaker 1: the passive matrix. Oh lead, tank, I need an exit. O. Gosh, wow,
Speaker 1: out of all of those, you know, I'm surprised you
Speaker 1: didn't say I know kung fu or just whoa uh
Speaker 1: you got your transparent Oh lads, Now these are really
Speaker 1: super cool. Like everything every single element in this oh
Speaker 1: lead is transparent. So when light is uh is flowing
Speaker 1: through this system, then you see it projected within a
Speaker 1: clear screen, and when it's not, you can just look
Speaker 1: through the screen. Now, this is used in things like
Speaker 1: heads up displays. So you know, you're talking exactly, flying
Speaker 1: a plane, driving a car, whatever, If you've got a
Speaker 1: heads up display that can show within the uh the
Speaker 1: wind screen or or cockpit screen or whatever. That is
Speaker 1: very likely a transparent oh lead. I've also seen this
Speaker 1: used in smart windows, which was something new. I mean
Speaker 1: I had heard about smart windows before, but it was
Speaker 1: the first time I had seen one. Was at CS
Speaker 1: where I think it was Samsung that had it, where
Speaker 1: it's a smart window that could display information and it
Speaker 1: could do things that give you like little information like
Speaker 1: news items or the weather or whatever. Although when you're
Speaker 1: looking out a window, if you need a weather report,
Speaker 1: when you're looking out a window, you're not being terribly observant. Well,
Speaker 1: it might be nice to know what the temperature is
Speaker 1: going to be open the window. Oh okay, alright, so
Speaker 1: you're looking at the future forecast. Alright, fine, fine, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, all right, okay, and I withdraw my objection.
Speaker 1: Uh what about active matrix I talked about those. That's
Speaker 1: the one with the that's the one with a thin
Speaker 1: film transistor. Do you want I just okay? They used
Speaker 1: as a lot in the phones. So oh yes, yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: that's the one that does have that thin film transistor
Speaker 1: I was talking about. That's the one that ends up
Speaker 1: taking the place of the intersections. The thin film transistor
Speaker 1: itself has the connections on it on the anode side
Speaker 1: where it activates where the pixels are, and these pixels
Speaker 1: are active. The fact that they are so thin is
Speaker 1: the benefit when you're talking about these electronic devices. But
Speaker 1: it makes it so much easier to uh, you know,
Speaker 1: fit it into these tablet form factors and smartphones. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if we were still using if we were using things
Speaker 1: like l c D technology for all of these devices,
Speaker 1: they would be significantly or at least noticeably larger, like
Speaker 1: thicker and and somewhat heavier, and I mean heavy being
Speaker 1: a relative thing. But in the case of it, every
Speaker 1: ounce counts. Yeah, in a tablet or something like that,
Speaker 1: you know, if it adds six ounces. Yeah. There's one
Speaker 1: more type of O lead talk about, which is the
Speaker 1: top emitting OH lead. And this has got a substrate
Speaker 1: that is either opaque or reflective, and they are often used.
Speaker 1: This is often uh like this, this is just one
Speaker 1: subtype of O lead. It can actually be combined with
Speaker 1: another type of A lead. So in other words, that
Speaker 1: active matrix old we were just talking about, that method
Speaker 1: of display could be combined with the top admitting OH lead. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this is something that's often used in things like
Speaker 1: smart cards, so lots of different applications of oh leads,
Speaker 1: not just uh displays on phones or UM or TVs
Speaker 1: or or even you know, computer monitors that kind of thing. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because even though it sounds pretty complex, really
Speaker 1: it's simpler than things like l c D technology. It is.
Speaker 1: It is much simpler in the grand scheme of things, um,
Speaker 1: even though it's more advanced technology, and it's taken years
Speaker 1: to kind of get the prototype, the manufacturing process efficient
Speaker 1: enough so that we can build screens that are at
Speaker 1: the size that we're used to. Even so, you know,
Speaker 1: we have mentioned that, yes, there are television screens coming out,
Speaker 1: like large ones TVs that use o LAD displays. They
Speaker 1: are incredibly thin, like to the point where you can't
Speaker 1: even really get a good picture of them when you
Speaker 1: look at them in a profile. Um. However, they also
Speaker 1: tend to cost a princely some Yes, that's what I
Speaker 1: was getting at, is that we have reached the point
Speaker 1: where the manufacturing process has allowed us to build these,
Speaker 1: but they're still prohibitively expensive. For I'd say the majority
Speaker 1: of the consumer market. New TV is likely to cost
Speaker 1: you several thousand dollars we're talking like ten grand, easy,
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars for oh lad screen easy. Um that
Speaker 1: that's a lot of money for a new television set.
Speaker 1: I would not be prepared to spend that much on
Speaker 1: a TV. And if you're talking about using a competing
Speaker 1: technology that costs say one fifth of that, you know
Speaker 1: or or or yeah or less depends I think the
Speaker 1: last thing. So for example, I I purchased an l
Speaker 1: E D l c D h D t V for
Speaker 1: um way less than that, like less than a tenth
Speaker 1: of that. And so you look at that and you're
Speaker 1: you're saying, yeah, the the technology, the display technology is
Speaker 1: clearly superior in that, clearly clearly hauh, in that it's
Speaker 1: got a very crisp picture. The colors are are very
Speaker 1: true true blacks. Yes, because you don't have that backlighting,
Speaker 1: just like plasma. Plasma does not have backlighting, but l
Speaker 1: c D does, which is why if you've ever had
Speaker 1: l c D television, new mine is an l c
Speaker 1: D t D. It's just backlit by l E D S. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's why l E D l c D. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So when you both but but if you're watching in
Speaker 1: a dark room and it's a scene that is like
Speaker 1: someone walks into a pitch black room in a house,
Speaker 1: or there's suddenly like a blindfolds put on or whatever.
Speaker 1: You start to notice like, wait a minute, my my
Speaker 1: screen is actually kind of glowing, like it's not really black,
Speaker 1: it's just really dark and I can see that there's
Speaker 1: light trying to shine through. Hey, it's pitch gray in there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not a true black. But oh leads and uh
Speaker 1: and true l a ed TVs and um uh plasma
Speaker 1: TVs they have true blacks where because there's no light
Speaker 1: coming through right that that part of the screen is inactive,
Speaker 1: So it's as dark as it's gonna get. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that's another nice thing that the color ratios on
Speaker 1: these contrast ratios are really really good. The but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's even though it's superior, it's just it's gonna take
Speaker 1: a while before that price is gonna drop low enough
Speaker 1: for it to be within the reach of the average consumer,
Speaker 1: I think. Yeah. And the flexible displays are are always
Speaker 1: off too. I think those will probably we'll price see
Speaker 1: those used in commercial projects first. Oh sure, well, I
Speaker 1: mean that's where the money is. People are gonna be
Speaker 1: willing to spend that for their company to do advertising
Speaker 1: or to do whatever. Um, I'm sure some mobile will
Speaker 1: add them to their UM sports stadium. Yeah. Now eventually,
Speaker 1: look at what I got. Yeah, eventually we may see
Speaker 1: that incorporate into consumer goods. Like I could imagine a
Speaker 1: like an o LED bracelet, right, like a thick oh
Speaker 1: lad bracelet that fits around your wrist. It can display
Speaker 1: the time, and it can do other stuff. Sure where
Speaker 1: it would be really thin, so you can have one
Speaker 1: that is you know, you can even get some of
Speaker 1: different lengths, so you can get one that fits your
Speaker 1: wrist really snugly, and then you can show all this
Speaker 1: uh this UM content off, yes snugly, and the battery
Speaker 1: and and processor and everything would be on the underside
Speaker 1: of it, so it's not always on display. Uh that
Speaker 1: unless you're you know, a nurse, in which cases the
Speaker 1: other way around. Uh the But yeah, that I could
Speaker 1: easily see that happening further down the line. Um, And
Speaker 1: the potential for oh LEDs is pretty high. I mean we're,
Speaker 1: like I said, we've already seen it in consumer goods
Speaker 1: like like smartphones and tablets, where it's really helped make
Speaker 1: these things as sleek and slender as they possibly can be.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see. By the time this podcast
Speaker 1: goes out, we'll know more about it. But I can't
Speaker 1: wait to see how the new iPad looks. Um and
Speaker 1: I'm sure that it's going to be using an organic
Speaker 1: light emitting diode screen, possibly a retina display. We don't know,
Speaker 1: because as we're recording this, it's the week before Apple
Speaker 1: has its big announcement. Maybe it won't be an iPad
Speaker 1: at all. Yeah, that's true, And I could come out
Speaker 1: that the March seven, uh discussion it has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with an iPad, in which case I'll just be like, well,
Speaker 1: I guess we're waiting around. But I would be surprised
Speaker 1: to see that because the iPad two came out in
Speaker 1: March last year. Yeah, whenever south By Southwest rolls around,
Speaker 1: that's when it's time for a new iPad. Al right, guys, Well,
Speaker 1: I think that wraps up our discussion on oh LEDs. Uh.
Speaker 1: They're pretty cool and yeah, if you want to learn
Speaker 1: more about them, please go to how stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com and look at how oh LEDs work. We have
Speaker 1: a lot of of information on it. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of different illustrations that show this process of the
Speaker 1: electrons moving from the cathode to the an out and
Speaker 1: exactly how that creates the the light that these layers
Speaker 1: are emitting. Um, it's very interesting stuff and it makes
Speaker 1: it a lot easier to understand. If you find this
Speaker 1: discussion at all confusing, I recommend you check it out.
Speaker 1: And uh, while are you there, look at some of
Speaker 1: the other articles on the side too, because they're pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: And I put a lot of time into writing some
Speaker 1: of these, and and and and I get lonely. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you have any suggestions for topics you would like
Speaker 1: us to cover, well, boy, do I have the advice
Speaker 1: for you? You can write us our email addresses tech
Speaker 1: stuff at Discovery dot com, or you can contact us
Speaker 1: on Facebook or Twitter. Are handled. There is tech stuff
Speaker 1: hs W and Chris and I will talk to you
Speaker 1: again really soon. Be sure to check out our new
Speaker 1: video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work
Speaker 1: staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities
Speaker 1: of tomorrow. The House Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived.
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Speaker 1: reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready. Are you